By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
The idea that “seeing is believing” is the kind of adage that can have more traction as a truism than as a research finding. But when it comes to truly appreciating the visual advantage in litigation, understanding the research can be helpful. In the case of a visual demonstrative that moves beyond the static display — a computer-generated animation — it is more helpful than you might think. A tool that illustrates the narrative you are trying to convey, that shows what you are trying to tell, can serve as a memorable and powerful tool of influence. And the research shows that this effect can be quite strong.
A timely example of research supporting that notion comes in a current article in the journal Psychology, Crime, & Law (Rempel & Burke, 2022). In this study, psychologists from Ryerson University in Toronto looked at mock jurors’ belief in a defendant’s story in a criminal case (drawn from a civil wrongful death case), and varied whether the jurors saw no visuals, a set of static visuals, or a computer-generated animation to accompany the verbal story. The researchers also varied whether the visual accompaniments were either congruent with or incongruent with the other physical and testimonial evidence in the case. They not only found that the animation helped, they discovered that the animation was more than twice as likely as a static visual to deliver the result that the side using it was after — in this case, an acquittal. What’s more, this advantage persisted whether the animation jibed with or differed from the other evidence. In this post, I’ll take a look at the implications of this research for litigators choosing to create, or needing to answer, an animation in trial.
The Research Generally: Engaging Visuals Work
Although the effect of courtroom animation is under-studied, there is a general trend in the literature. As Rempel and Burke note, “it appears that jurors in the 21st century – who have become accustomed to interactive digital communication in their daily lives – expect an equally progressive experience in court.” Some of the other prior findings that are reviewed in the article include the following:
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- Nearly all jurors in wired courtrooms will report that visual and audio aids assist them in understanding the information, and enhance their experience
- Dynamic visual information leads to greater retention
- Dynamic visual information leads to a stronger emotional response to the information
- Jurors responding to moving visuals are more engaged and will evaluate evidence more thoroughly
- Vivid information (defined as interesting, concrete, image-provoking) has more influence on a decision that non-vivid (or “pallid”) information
- Motion and colors will attract and hold attention more effectively
- Stronger learning occurs when jurors are engaged at both the verbal and visual levels
- Information stored based on an animation will be more efficiently retrieved
- Use of animation yields increased comprehension of detailed facts
- News stories with animated crime recreations are seen as more credible than news stories based just on description
- The view or perspective can have an effect (e.g., internal view from car conveying less control to the driver than the overhead or ‘god’s-eye view’)
The Current Study:
There are a few important layers to this new study’s results
One, Animation Works
According to the Story Model of legal persuasion, the more accessible a story is, the more familiar and credible it will seem. Just being able to see the story makes it easier for us to imagine it, to see it as our own thinking, and to feel that this is what happened. When it came to judging the defendant’s conduct in the criminal case, the researchers found that even when holding the testimony and other evidence constant, a demonstrative reconstruction of the defendant’s story had a dramatic effect on jurors’ likelihood of believing that story enough to acquit the defendant:
In the current study, participants were significantly more likely to acquit the defendant when his testimony was accompanied by a computer-generated animation (51.25% rate of acquittal), than when it was accompanied by a static visual aid (25.0%) or was not accompanied by a visual aid (20.5%).
That, of course, is more than twice the success rate, even when compared to static visuals. The computer-generated animation, the authors theorize, allows the mock jurors to construct a plausible view of what happened while expending less mental effort. That increases their familiarity, their comprehension, and their confidence in the narrative. In short, it increases the “truthiness” of the claim, giving it the feeling of it being true apart from the substantive support or truth value of the narrative.
Two, Animation Works Even When It Shouldn’t
It is precisely that feature of adding the feeling of support even when support isn’t necessarily there that makes computer-generated animations potentially troublesome in court. The authors call animations “persuasive to the point of being prejudicial” based on their tendency to add perceived support even when what is being shown is at odds with the rest of the evidence. That is what they found in the study:
When case evidence from other witnesses corroborates a defendant’s testimony, the use of a computer-generated animation can facilitate mock jurors’ judgments, bringing them more in line with the facts of the case. When case evidence conflicts with a defendant’s testimony, however, computer-generated animations can also prejudice mock jurors’ judgments, such that jurors tend to over rely on the scenario depicted in the animation and fail to appropriately consider other probative evidence which would be valuable to their decisions about a defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Essentially, what is happening is that critical thinking is being relaxed a bit, because instead of carefully and logically processing what may have happened, the juror gets to simply view a version of what happened, and that version can be quite sticky.
Three, Animation Works Even When Jurors Don’t Know it works
A final interesting observation made in the study is that the mock jurors were not particularly sensitive to the effect of the animation — in other words, they did not know that it worked as well as it worked. “Participants who viewed a computer-generated animation – despite being considerably influenced by the visual depiction – did not overtly report that the impact of this visual aid on their ultimate judgments.” The effect was quite clear when comparing those jurors who had seen the animation with those who had not — more than double the acquittals — but when you asked the mock jurors about what influenced their decision, they did not focus on the animation.
There is an important general lesson there: People don’t always know what influences them. For example, if you hold a mock trial and you ask the jurors, “Was it good that I used this argument/metaphor/demonstrative etc.?” they will often play down the effect by insisting that their reactions were already set and determined by “the evidence.” That doesn’t mean that it didn’t matter. Jurors react to the whole package you are giving them, and that reaction can include implicit effects that are outside their conscious awareness. If an animation works by making a particular scenario easier to imagine, jurors won’t always admit, or necessarily even be aware of, the influence.
In closing, I think there are a few clear practical takeaways for the litigator:
- If you can animate something, do so. It works.
- If the other side is animating something, be aware that they might be blurring the lines between demonstrative and probative evidence. Be prepared to challenge what is unsupported in the animation, even if it is a small detail.
- By the same token, be prepared to defend your own animation. Having it be prepared, not just by a graphic designer, but in concert with the fact or the expert witness, will help you make that defense.
Other Posts on Visual Communication:
- Take Advantage of Screen Prominence in Your Zoom Hearing
- Gruesome Injury Photos: Consider the Halo of High Impact Evidence
- Witnesses, Add to Your ‘Truthiness’ by Showing Pictures
Rempel, E., & Burke, T. M. (2022). Technology on trial: facilitative and prejudicial effects of computer-generated animations on jurors’ legal judgments. Psychology, Crime & Law, 1-23.